Marcia
OMalley is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Materials
Science Department at Rice University, and is a co-founder of Houston Medical
Robotics.She holds a joint appointment
in Computer Science at Rice, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the
Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at both Baylor College of
Medicine and the University of Texas Medical School at
Houston. At Rice, her research interests focus on the issues that arise when
humans physically interact with robotic systems. One thrust of her lab is the
design of haptic feedback and shared control between robotic devices and their
human users for training and rehabilitation in virtual environments.
Psychophysical studies provide insight into the effect of haptic cues on human
motor adaptation, skill acquisition, and the restoration of motor coordination.
Another area of interest is nanorobotic manipulation
with haptic feedback, and the use of vision-based sensing for control of
robotic manipulators and the generation of force feedback to the operator.She has also explored the use of haptic
devices for teaching the fundamentals of dynamic systems and control in the
mechanical engineering curriculum.In
2008, she received the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching at Rice
University. OMalley is a 2004 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator and
the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2005. Additionally, she is chair of
the IEEE Technical Committee on Haptics. She is a former Associate Editor for
the IEEE Transactions on Haptics and currently serves on the editorial board of
the ASME/IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics.

Research Interests

Modeling, design, and control
of haptic interfaces

Modeling, design, and control
of telemanipulation and human augmentation systems